The field of the invention is software applications, and specifically systems and methods for organizing and accessing multiple applications through a common user interface.
Before the present invention, it was customary for mobile enterprise applications to be deployed individually. Each application could be accessed and launched through its own unified resource locator (URL) or other type of address. However, there were no good techniques for launching multiple mobile enterprise applications from a single place; providing simple navigation and a consistent user interface suited for the device from which the applications would be launched; and adapting menu applications to user preferences, such as locale.
One prior technique was to program a menu application; however, this approach requires that the application be reprogrammed if the mix of available mobile applications changed. This procedure is inefficient from the point of view of the provider of the applications; cannot easily accommodate user-generated applications or status information from running applications; and requires different menu applications to permit users with different authorization levels to use some of the mobile applications but not others.